Charter preps for debut of Netgear’s 802.11ac router

Charter Communications’ residential customers will see blazing Wi-Fi speeds in their homes when the company debuts a new Netgear router starting May 16.

The dual-band router is fueled by latest wireless specification, 802.11ac, which was ratified by the IEEE in January. Charter said the new router was capable of delivering more than the maximum 100 Mbps downstream speed from its Internet Ultra tier throughout subscribers’ homes.

While downstream speeds on broadband tiers have continued to evolve with faster speeds, Wi-Fi routers have been a chokepoint for in-home use, particularly with video streams. Charter said its new router was tested by Allion Engineering Services to deliver the fastest Wi-Fi speeds among its competitors. Charter said it was first ISP in its markets to offer a high performance 802.11ac wireless router.

“In most situations, the end customer experience is either limited by the maximum wired speed of the Internet connection, or the capabilities of the wireless router,” said Jim Blackley, executive vice president of engineering. “With the combination of Charter’s fast wired Internet speeds and the new dual-band 802.11ac high performance router, customers will be able to unleash the full power of Charter Internet with superior speeds throughout the home.”

Blackley and CEO Tom Rutledge were among the list of executives that moved over to Charter from Cablevision. Among cable operators, Cablevision was an early pioneer in building its own network and deploying Wi-Fi hotspots.

While Charter isn’t a current member of the Cable WiFi consortium, which currently shares more than 200,000 hot spots among the five members, Rutledge and Blackley are keenly aware of the service’s benefits to subscribers.